Trial and Error
Ephesians 5:8-20[1]
There is a tension in the
Scriptures regarding the moral standards for the life of faith. In some places,
the “precepts” of the Lord about right and wrong are presented as absolute. It
would seem that what Scripture teaches on how we are to live our lives is clear
and unchanging. On the other hand, there are other places where the Scriptures
seem to speak with a different voice. In those passages, the will of the Lord
is expressed in general principles more than clear-cut rules. Indeed, those of
us who embrace the New Testament are used to hearing that we are set free from
rules and regulations. It can be confusing to try to know just what it is we’re
expected to do.
That tension translates into two
basically different approaches to the Christian life. Some of us believe that
all the teachings of Scripture are indeed rules for living, with all the
authority and finality of the Ten Commandments. Therefore, to depart from any
of them is to depart from God’s will. Unfortunately, life tends to be messy,
and we all make mistakes. And so that has led some of us to embrace the
opposite extreme: we cannot possibly keep all the commands the Bible presents,
so we think we are free to live as we choose. In the process, however, we can
go so far as to abandon the Scriptures entirely as the basis for our life and
faith.
Our lesson from Ephesians for
today presents us squarely with this problem. On the one hand, in the preceding
verses St. Paul speaks about the behaviors that must be avoided, indeed must
not even be mentioned, as well as those which prevent any who practice them
from having an “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5). In
our lesson, he speaks in seemingly absolute terms of the contrast between those
who are “disobedient” because they are in the darkness and we who are “children
of light.” If you only pay attention to what our Scripture lesson negates, it
would seem that the matter is clear and unambiguous. Those of us who practice
the Christian faith are to separate ourselves from the behaviors of those who
walk in darkness.
But the problem with this is that
it’s hard to make such an absolute separation when it comes to human behavior.
Whether we like it or not, we all contain both darkness and light, and there
are times when our behavior reflects one or the other.[2]
Those who cannot accept this typically have not had much experience with the
brokenness of life. And even if they do, they only cinch up their resolve even
tighter and refuse to admit that they might ever “fall short of the glory of
God.” But the attitude that sees the speck in the other’s life and is blind to
the log in one’s own is itself a part of the darkness in us all. We just cover
it up with a veneer of piety.
Despite our best efforts at
avoiding this difficult truth, the fact of the matter is that we all fall
short. We all make mistakes. We are all human, which means we are all fallen
and flawed and fallible. And oftentimes we fail precisely at the point where we
think we are invulnerable. I think that’s what Jesus’ saying about the speck
and the log is about: recognizing that none of us holds the moral “high
ground,” and if we think we do, it should be a warning signal that we are
headed in the wrong direction.
So if we cannot construct an
air-tight absolute set of life laws from the Scripture that any flesh-and-blood
human being can possible keep perfectly, what are we to do? Many in our day
have decided that the thing to do is to ignore the Scriptures. After all, they
do come from a time and a place that is very different from our world. The
logical conclusion would seem to be to think of the Bible as a historical
relic, one that might have some snippets of wisdom. But since it’s basically
out of touch with our lives here and now, we are free to take it or leave it.
Since it comes from a very different setting, we can view its teaching,
especially its moral precepts, as descriptive of a way of life that no longer
really applies to us. But to make that assumption would be to abandon one of
the essential foundations for our faith.
What are we to do then? If we look
at the positive teachings in our lesson for today, I think they may point us in
the right direction. We are to “live as children of light”, which means
practicing “all that is good and right and true” (Eph. 5:8-9). We are to “be
careful” how we live, seeking to be wise, “making the most of the time” (Eph.
5:15-16). We are to “understand what the will of the Lord is” and seek to “be
filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:17-18). And I think the guiding principle
behind all of this is found in the appeal to “Try to find out what is pleasing
to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10).[3]
If you’re like me, you may be
wondering just how specifically we’re supposed to do that. But that’s where the
heart of what the Scriptures have to say can be challenging to us. There are
indeed some very clear-cut teachings, but the Bible doesn’t tend to prescribe
specific actions. Instead it teaches us principles for living, principles like
“you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and “do justly, love mercy, and walk
humbly with your God.” Our job is to “try to find out what is pleasing to the
Lord.” That may sound frustrating. We’d much rather have a clear-cut list of
do’s and don’ts. But that’s not the way God works in our lives. The call to
follow Christ is a call to live intentionally, every day.[4] It
is a call to continually seek God’s will in every aspect of our daily lives.[5] In
a very real sense, it is a call to a life of trial and error—figuring out how
God wants us to live our lives as we face each situation, each crisis, each
opportunity, and then doing our best to put that into practice.[6]
[1] ©2015
Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/16/2015 at Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf. Henri
Nouwen, The Wounded Healer, 38, where
he offers the suggestion that for ministers to truly offer others a way to
connect with God we must “enter ourselves first of all into the center of our
existence and become familiar with the complexities of our inner lives.” I
think this applies generally to all, and he says that when we do this we will “discover
the dark corners as well as the light spots.” Cf. also Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 15-16, where he
says, “Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain
victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the
false self. … Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great
encounter—the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the
encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new
self.” Cf. further Thomas Merton, New
Seeds of Contemplation, 34-35, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory
person: a false self. … All sin starts from the assumption that my false self,
the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental
reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” Cf.
Richard Rohr , Breathing Under Water:
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, 33, where he says that the “ego” or the
false self “wants to think well of itself and deny any shadow material.” He
continues, “Your shadow self is not your evil self. It is just that part of you
that you do not want to see.”
[3] Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible XI: 437:
“Christians will be active moral agents in their world. They are to ‘try to
find out’ [dokimazo, ‘discern’ or
‘test’] what is pleasing to the Lord (v. 10). This implies that believers must
determine what is suitable behavior in concrete circumstances.” Since the main
idea is one of “figuring out” what is pleasing to the Lord, I like Gene
Peterson’s translation of this verse in The
Message: “Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.”
[4] Cf.
Perkins, “Letter to the Ephesians,” NIB
XI: 443: “Believers must attend to
their own conduct. Ephesians never suggests that such attention requires
detailed moralism and legal observance. It does require consistent turning away
from the old way of life.”
[5] In this
regard, it seems to me that the highest example of this approach to life is the
one modeled by Jesus. As the Declaration
of Faith, 1978 PCUS (adopted by PCUSA in 1991) puts it: “Jesus lived with a
constant sense of his Father’s presence. He put God’s claim on his life above
all else.”
[6] I think
one of the best expressions of this approach to life is a prayer written by
Thomas Merton, in Thoughts in Solitude,
79: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I’m going. I do not see the road ahead
of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know
myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I
am actually doing so. But I believe the
desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in
all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that
desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it. There for I will trust You always though I
may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are
ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.” (emphasis
added)
